US Government Lies About The Use of Predator Drones

A recent legal case involving North Dakota rancher, Rodney Brossart and four other family members has given Rodney the distinction of being the first US citizen to be sent to prison as the result of the use of a Predator drone belonging to the Department of Homeland Security.

The whole affair started when a neighbor of Mr. Brossart accused him of not returning six head of cattle that had strayed onto Brossart's 3600 acre ranch. Brossart assure the neighbor the cattle were not on his property, but the neighbor filed a formal complaint with local law enforcement charging Brossart with cattle rustling. Law enforcement went to the Brossart ranch to search the 3600 acres for the cattle which quickly esculated into an armed stand-off on the Brossart property where officers claimed they were harassed by gunfire from searching the property. A SWAT unit was then called in and was unsuccessful at ending the stand-off after 36 hours. At some point local law enforcement contacted Homeland Security to get use of a Predator drone to do surveillance to locate all the Brossart family members so they could be taken into custody.

Once in custody, Rodney Brossart was charged, found not guilty of any offenses involving cattle, but was found guilty of his part in the stand-off for which he was sentenced to serve 3 years in prison based on evidence supplied by the Predator drone. Brossart's attorney has tried to get the conviction thrown out because the drone was used without first obtaining a warrant to do so. The US Government has stated on several occasions that drones flying over the US would not be armed, they also have stated that drones would not be used in surveillance of US citizens on American soil... obviously the Brossart case shows the US Government "LIED!" To date it is known that Homeland Security alone has used the Predator drones 700 times, and often some of those times involved local law enforcement requests. Even if one is in favor of drone use, one has to consider the cost to taxpayers every time one of these units is put into the air as a new toy for enforcement agencies of various levels, and the fact surveillance is being done without a legally issued warrant. The worst possibility is if government has lied about the use drones doing surveillance, it is only a hop, skip, and a jump to arming Predator drone for use against US citizens on American soil for any reason government deems necessary.

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